After a couple of long weeks, including weekends and public holidays soaked up by work, it was time to get some well deserved rest. Not that I got a lot of rest with work. It seems like I cannot turn off or be left alone. Anyway, one of the days i went into work to pick my new work laptop up, a nice shiny new HP all singing and dancing machine, that actually shares a similar spec to the HP laptop I am using now. The only difference is that this Laptop uses Vista, whilst the work machine uses XP Pro. Setting the new laptop up was my priority for when I return to work, so I can jump straight in. All my updates are done and software needed installed.

I still have a lot of work to do upon my return, but it can wait now till Monday. A trip had been planned to go to Melbourne to see the Essendon Bombers play Carlton. The flight was at 2.0pm from Sydney to Melbourne and the flight was fairly decent, small plane but nothing to complain about. We landed on time and left the airport to make our way to the Hotel. It was quite a walk from the Sky-Bus terminal, especially as I still have a bad back, which has now progressed to a trapped nerve. Pain is bearable but makes life difficult walking. We arrived (eventually) at the hotel and signed in, settled in. The room was odd. The Bathroom facilities were encased in what can only be described as a Glass Cabinet, yes Shower, sink and the Throne of Doom. The shower was ordinary, it was just a piece of shiny tubing with a nozzle on the end which allowed water to drip out of, not really what I would call a shower.

We had plans to meet up with some of Sam and Karen’s work colleagues at their Melbourne Office and go for Drinks after work, as one of the men who work there was playing in a bar, just across the street. So off we trundled dressed up in Essendon Supporters gear and had a few drinks. The ‘Bar’ was not one of those places Jeans and tee shirts reside and If you could spot a ‘normal’ phone in there you were either dreaming or on drugs. The Blackberry brigade were out in force that night and probably every other night too.

We probably had one too many drinks before the game and stayed longer than planned, so the Hike to the MCG was a quick and painful one. Someone decided to get a taxi, that was a bad plan, as a Tram ride would have been quicker – which it was. The part which caused me some grief was trying to walk across Williams Street quickly, the plan was to get to the other side, however, my left leg decided it didn’t want to play anymore and gave way. Yep, Splat face first on the Tarmac and Tram Lines. I uttered two words, Oh Shit and scrambled up and limped to the other side, only to discover Sam and Karen in tears of laughter at my expense.

MCG at Night

We arrived at The G and watched a really good game of Footy (AFL to you non believers).  essendon beat Carlton 136 – 67. It was nice to see Essendon play as a team. Why did I choose Essendon, I didn’t. The whols familly are supporters, so I get to go. My Team is Geelong and not just because they have been unstoppable for the past two seasons, it was a scientific aproach called eenie meenie minie mo. The walk home from the game was interesting, we took an extended walk – note too self – take control of Map in future. It seemed that the way we came in was not to be the way we left. Great, another marathon wlak I could have done without. We bought drinks to take back to the hotel room and upon arrival consumend a good portion of them, the alchohol eased the pain.

Saturday we had planned to go to St Kilda Beach, which is a very nice area in Melbourne to live.

A Shot of St Kilda Beach

As you can see a well used beach by all local and non local inhabitants. As you walk further up to the top of the picture it brings you to a Pier, which in turn brings you to a marina and a reserve for some cute critters which are native to this neck of the woods so to speak.

The Pier at St Kilda Beach

First day of winter as represented by Google.com.au

well, it is the first day of winter here in Oz, its almost 10am and its 12 degrees.

I have 4 new toys to play with this Long Weekend. Featured above is one of the 3 terminal servers and one large SQL server. Its going to be a long weekend!

After a long time of planning and quote gathering, the task of implementing the new servers is almost here. Next weekend I will be long overdue the task of upgrading the system. Four brand new IBM X series servers, fully loaded with Server 2008 and boasting some nice hardware, we will be up and running. SQL server with its 8 Hard drives flashing away complete with a 3.0GHz Quad core processor and 4 Gig of RAM to start off with. SQL Server 2005, purely because our Business software version won’t run with SQL 2008. I briefly tested the server by setting up a quick Database load. What normally takes me 7 hours to load our Company database only took a mere 2 hours. No doubt that once the system is fully integrated this will reduce. The three other servers, two terminal servers and one for licensing boast quad core processors 3.0GHz and the biggest TS has two quad core processors and 10Gig of RAM.

The old servers are unstable, or more-so the OS has become corrupt, years of tinkering with, power failures, incorrect setups has caused much chaos. It was only in the early stages of my new role that the Servers actually got an Antivirus program on there! we have been very lucky. The two Citrix Servers are my nemesis. Citrix 1 runs, well crawls along and does manage to stay upright more often than not. Citrix 2, oh god Citrix two requires daily restarts, power resets, power cable ripped from its arse end and occasionally I get to actually request that it restarts. It is hard to believe that both these servers are exactly the same machine, spec, OS and updates.

The Business software Sage Accpac 5.4 and Technisoft Service Manager are our weapons of choice. We have invested a lot of time and money with these. I am hoping that we get to move upto 5.5, which features some nice little gadgets and gizmos we could really use. The whole company should run more smoothly once all this has been done.

I am currently working on these new boxes. First task is get them onto the Domain, a relatively easy task, once you have given them a static IP address, subnet and gateway to use, plus pointing the DNS to our Active Directory/Domain Controller servers and adding one more DNS for good measure, so these buggers can resolve anything not on our network. The First TS to be placed onto the domain was the biggest of the two. Powered him up and carried out the usual updates, Service Pack two already. Next task was to see how it connected over RDP. Wow! This thing loaded up and was running on my desktop before the other older citrix had completely loaded and was able to be used. Next step, Printing. As these are all 64 bit machines, I had to ensure the print drivers would run. duly downloaded printer driver package, auto searched for printers and away it went. One printer installed and running without any issues. Next test Adobe Reader. Downloaded and installed in minutes. Opened up a document and fully loaded as if it had been cached. No more waiting for adobe to open up and then load the document.

It will be so nice to run and work with a system that actually does it’s job. It will be nice to ask people to logout, purely because 1, I can or 2, I need to run an update or a patch to the business software.

The servers are being setup for Sydney local and all other states. We can have as many as 20 to 30 people on here in Sydney, whilst Bris, WA and Vic would probably just equal the amount of users on the system here in Sydney. My next task is to install Office. Which one? Well it may look like 2003 is to be the option available to us, however, I am having a meeting with a guy from MickeySoft tomorrow so I hop I can squeeze an option to run 2007. Yes I know Outlook 2007 is slow and can be an arse sometimes, but it has more functionality to it than its predecessor.

So here’s to next weekend

Update on my previous post. Good news for Sasha, I decided to give her a chance. Having seen her with Gracie since the incident it is hard to imagine she would do any harm. The concern is still there, so I will be watching her like a hawk. Many thanks to all who have commented on this, thankyou, it has helped make my decision easier

Not one of my nicer post’s and not one that I am proud of. It all began last night. Mark and Linda plus Gracie came down because their wii was not working. So they brought it to us, so we could have a look at it. Turns out it was the wii remote was faulty. So once that was sorted out we ventured downstairs to the rumpus room and started playing Tiger Woods 08 golf, which just happens to be my all time favourite game at the moment. Whilst we were happily playing golf, one of the Dogs decided to pounce on an unfortunate Possum.

These little critters are probably bigger than an overweight Cat, the domestic kind. They posses some nasty claws and teeth and can get quite nasty if cornered. Sasha being the formidable hunter decided to take on this Possum, who had been hunting for food and had found a mouse or rat. The next thing we know gracie had gone outside to let the other dog in and suddenly announced that Sasha had got something and it was screaming. Well, we were all outside in a flash and saw Sasha with bits of fur hanging from her mouth and a possum. We managed to get her to release the possum and watched this animal scarper off into a bush. The sad thing about this is, the Possum had an injured leg, it was just hanging down with no control over it. We managed to get the dogs in and went to see where this Possum was hiding. We found it in the bush and tried to keep it from running or climbing any further. The plan was to get WIRES or the RSPCA out to take this injured animal away.

Sam called numerous numbers only to be greeted by Answering machines and another list of numbers to call, yet nobody was available. It strikes me that these agencies are in dire need of revamping their approach to animal welfare, as it is laughable at best. Finally Sam managed to get in touch with someone and was advised to try and get this Possum into a box and keep it safe. This for someone who has never handled a wild animal before is extremely dangerous, as these things can rip you to shreds quite easily, injured or not. As it turned out the Possum managed to climb onto the fence and into the smaller of the two trees. This is where it stayed all night, cold, injured and obviously in pain.

The morning came and we went looking for the Possum. Amazingly the possum had moved from the smaller of the trees into the big tree and had perched itself on the end of one of the big branches overhanging the garden. It was moving, but slowly and very carefully. I took Sam to the station and came straight back home, hoping that someone from WIRES would come out or at best the RSPCA. But no. No-one was available to come out for another 4-5 hours and even then, no guarantees. This is totally unaceptable. Its all well and good watching programs like Animal Rescue and programs about the RSPCA on TV, they only show the good bits, planned no doubt. The service is shocking and I have to say i am disgusted.

I recieved a call from someone from WIRES about 9am ish. They said no-one could come out till lunch time and it would be best to get the Fire Brigade out, as they are to a point well versed at getting small furry animals out of trees. Sure enough, I get a phone call from a guy in the Fire Brigade and we made the call for them to come out, and they did. They even appologised for being late… WHAT!?!?! They came, that is the main thing and they did their job well. More than what WIRES or the RSPCA did!

They got the Possum down, with a bit of a fight and we placed him in the Crate with an old towel. I then took him to the local Vet just up the road from me. Sam had arranged this via the RSPCA, as they don’t take wounded wild animals for some reason?!? So they passed us over to a Vet at Bass Hill. Maz was the vets name. I walked in with a crate of Possum and was escorted into the consulting room, where upon Maz did his magic. Towel in hand, he got junior out of the crate and placed him on the table to have a good look at him. Sadly the damage was too great for Junior. he had to be put to sleep. He offered to take him in the back, but I said I would stay with him, so I did. I managed to stroke the Possum for the first time and was taken back by the thick coat and how soft it was. I watched the syringe go into the Possum and waited. I nealt down and was at face level with the Junior and stroked his head and ears, whilst speaking softly to the little ball of fur, his eyes half blinked and he settled. I kept stroking his head and ears and finally watched this beautiful animal give its last sigh of breath and then it was silent.

He had gone.

It was sad to witness the life fade away, yet a relief that it was no longer in pain, nor would it suffer anymore. The last sigh of breath was like its life passing on its wisdom and all it had done in one moment, to the air surrounding it.

My eyes were not dry walking out of the surgery. Yet I was filled with Anger and Sorrow for what had happened. My thoughts turned now to Sasha. She came away with one wound on her muzzle. She was lucky, very lucky. She might not be tomorrow, when she goes through the same fate as Junior. This is not the first incident where she has claimed a life. She has killed a couple of birds, one cat and now this. My fear is that she has tasted blood and will now be open to other victims. She is a big dog, she is a very agile and fast dog, she is a Rhodesian Ridgeback cross. I know the Hound is a hunter, Ridgebacks are no exception to this. They were used to hunt Lion. Lets get one thing straight here. Any dog is capable of doing harm to something or someone. There are never bad dogs, just bad owners. I can honestly say, she has never growled, shown her teeth or shown any kind of malice to anyone. Her nature is superb around humans and some other dogs. Jacob is her favourite, after me. She will sit by my side when i am at the computer, she will follow me anywhere. Wherever I am, she is there. She loves Gracie and anyone else that comes whilst we are here. But. What if? What if she suddenly gives into an urge or a feeling, even a mindset that something is not as it should be, what will happen then?

As a responsible dog owner, is it not my right to not only protect myself, but other people too? My first thought is to have her put to sleep, whilst this is a very tough desicison, it is one I am willing to make. I cannot afford to have someone, young or old be injured by my dog, knowing that she has injured/killed before. I should stop it right now. I cannot be with her 24/7. I should be able to trust her 100%. Having said that, anyone in the right mind would not leave a powerful dog with a stranger to the family un-guarded or un-watched. I have already made my mind up, tomorrow will be her last day.

Moving house has become second nature to me of late. Our previous house had issues, none of which the Landlord/Owner could be bothered looking into. result of this is in the title of this post. We have moved back to Georges Hall, which makes my travel time to work a damn sight quicker and less painfull. Henry Lawson Drive at peak time was a pain in the you know what. Add Newbridge Road and Governor Maquarie Drive into the equasion added another 15 to 25 minutes onto my drive for no other reason than Peak Traffic and lots of it.

I now get to work in less than 25 minutes, even with peak children going to school traffic. The move spanned over 3 weeks as per normal, with the amount of crap we keep and lack of planning. With that said, this time was an exception due to the nature of the move. I just wanted out of the house. I had no intention in staying there a minute longer than required. I wanted out of the house the first couple of weeks, moreso after the Air Conditioner Panel fell off in the night and cut my head open. Then the Toilet backed up and when I advised the Agent of the situation, I was greeted by ‘have you got e-mail?’ My reply was less than polite (no surprise there then!). Moving on, it was decided to move asap, so with the help of a decent Agent, whom we know quite well, we got this new place.

The latter stages of moving were starting to tell on us both, I was getting cranky and over the move. We have now finally settled in and are at the stage of do we unpack this box or leave it? So for the next 3 days, I am on annual leave with a view to sorting the garage out and the bags and boxes of stuff? Yes ’stuff’ being the keyword here. Stuff relates to items that you own but cannot understand why or how. Stuff is the ultimate question in life. Did I buy this or you, Stuff is the item or items that take up valuable space in cupboards, drawers and surfaces for no apparent reason, yet it holds a significant value of ‘f**k’spence’ and you are totally unsure as to its real dollar value. You can imagine the dilemma.

It will be nice to have three days off from work. I have been busy with a planned and much needed server upgrade. My plan for the company was approved plus one extra server. Much to my surprise as the cost was a large amount. 4 brand new IBM servers, SQL Server being replaced with an absolute monster of a machine and 2 new Terminal Servers, plus the additional server replacing our old Mail Server and Profile Server. Don’t ask me why it was setup that way, I had nothing to do with it. All these new beast’s have Windows 2008 server, SQL 2005 with the option to upgrade for free to the latest SQL, as our current business software won’t work with 2008 MYSQL. It will also give me the option to wipe off the old four machines and use them for other things and upgrade memory and Hard drives as required. This will require some long nights and weekend work, until such time I can roll them out to the business, with as little dissruption as possible. This will also give me the option to re-install printers correctly and in one place only. Our system is a mess! No wonder we have so many issues. Previous IT was lacking in planning and knowledge.